Mary Portas: quality will reign again, says the shop queen

A generation has never seen good service, but the old values are returning to the high street, Mary Portas, retail expert, tells
Celia Walden.

BY Celia Walden |
21 November 2009

Mary Portas at the Telegraph Magazine Shop Awards in Soho, central London Photo: WILL WINTERCROSS

When Mary Portas was seven, as punishment for misbehaving in the supermarket, her mother used to take her sister shopping instead of her. "I remember sitting on the wall waiting for them to come back - and feeling just tragic."

Portas still misbehaves in shops, throwing tantrums, barking demands and getting her way, only now, millions tune in to watch.

"My very first memory of shopping was being bought a new pair of brogues from Clarks. The excitement of those new shoes," she holds her breath for a moment, "and the smell of the leather - not to mention the box - was just..."

At 49, the retail guru and star of BBC TV's
Mary Queen of Shops
no longer feels the enchantment of the British shopping experience so viscerally. "We probably have the most varied high street in the world," Hertfordshire-born Portas concedes, "but fast fashion and fast retail has eradicated good service from the industry. There is a whole generation out there who don't know what service is; I think we are one of the worst nations in the world at it.

"The States are brilliant, as are the French and Italians, but what I always hoped the recession would do, is inspire people to go back to places like John Lewis, where the people in the bedding department understand beds, or the Majestic Wine Warehouse, where you trust them to know about wine. The great news is: that's exactly what has started to happen."

Loyal viewers of her show, in which she attempts to revive beleaguered retail businesses, are kept hooked by the old-fashioned values to which she keeps returning. Service, Portas insists, is what will determine who sinks and who swims in this recession.

"Desire doesn't just stop because there's a recession. People are out there, wanting to treat themselves to a little, inexpensive, slice of joy, which is why the beauty industry and patisseries are doing well. But the Telegraph reader votes for the Shop Awards show that when the world's a rocky place, we'll shop with someone we can rely on.

"Great, confident businesses like Boots are still very successful, and for great value, people are flocking to supermarkets, so the real problems lie with the bad service providers and the middle-market businesses."

Portas predicts a return of good quality independents. "Butchers and little cheese shops will make comebacks, even if the big brands like Starbucks will still be everywhere. Anyone who has ever tasted their coffee knows it's not about what they serve, which is disgusting. It's because they are social meeting places: their product becomes a by-product."

But if the demise of Woolworths, "run by a bunch of muppets," she maintains, has taught us anything, it's that there is a place for nostalgia, up to a point. "Brits can be forgiving for a very long time, just look at Marks and Spencer: we wanted that to come back." The loyalty we feel towards food and homewear brands, however, doesn't extend to high street fashion, ruled, as it mostly is, she explains, by the fickle teen market.

"International brands like Zara are a poke in the eye for places like Next, which is a pile of ----. Although there are exceptions (like Topshop), we need to redefine what good design is in this country. When I walk down the street, I can't tell the difference between Dorothy Perkins, Next or Jigsaw. Where have all the characterful brands gone?

"But if
The X Factor
this year tells us one thing about the country, it's that the taste level is stuffed. We want instant gratification with entertainment and music, just as we do with fashion. But after the Primark generation, a more thoughtful shopper may come along." To that aim, Portas has plans to develop her own clothing range. "I want to fight against what's missing on the high street. Look for retail brands for women of a certain age and there is nothing there - certainly nothing sexy.

"The journalist Tina Brown once wrote that you become visible after forty, but that shouldn't be the case, because it is then that you are at your most powerful." Much of her appeal can be traced back to a solid foundation in her subject. Having lost her parents within two years of each other, 18-year-old Portas had to leave RADA, ditch plans to act and switch to a more vocational graphics and visual display course at Watford School of Art.

"One of five children, it fell to me to look after everyone," she says. Brutal as it must have felt then, the change of direction made her what she is today. After a brief spell as a window dresser for Harrods, Portas moved to Harvey Nichols in 1990, where she honed the knowledge she unleashes like weaponry today.

The performer within her lay dormant until the day when, aged 42, she was spotted on
Richard and Judy
and offered her own series. She was a natural. "From the moment we started filming the pilot, I couldn't even see the cameras rolling."

Though reluctant to be compared to Simon Cowell ("I'm very honest with people but it's about empowering them, not putting them down - and I'm never rude") she admits that the new series this spring steps it up a notch.

"One woman walked off and refused to come back on. I try not to feel offended ... but I can see why some people get upset with me."

Portas was piqued, however, by a recent article in
T
he New York Times which described her as "imperious, with thin lips". "Thin lips," she spits, her eyes narrowing. "Well, I'm not having them done."

Having sustained her career through motherhood, divorce (in the late 1990s), and the unexpected twist of a new relationship with Melanie Rickey, 37-year-old fashion features editor of
Grazia
magazine, Portas looks unlikely to be toppled as queen of retail anytime soon.

When I ask her to describe a high street in 2020, the vision arouses the same animation as those brogues must have done all those years ago. "There'll be so many brands we haven't heard of yet, and names like Marks and Spencer partnering up with big technology brands. There will be an enormous amount of wellness shops, too, as well as clothing shops incorporating both social networking and musical/visual performances into their remit. It's exciting," she smiles.

In the meantime, she is not too busy to allow herself idle fantasies of returning to the stage one day "and maybe doing a Brecht at the Royal Court".

"To be honest," she says, "I'm probably having the time of my life at the moment. What nobody ever tells you about age, is that instead of obsessing about whether or not you can do something, you just get on and make it happen."